Student sues after being punished by school for scandalous picture

Posted: Saturday, September 11, 1999

The Associated Press

MIDLAND (AP) - Eighteen-year-old Casey Riggan knew that he and his friends had a keeper when they photographed his principal's car parked in front of an attractive high school teacher's house one Saturday afternoon.

But he never imagined that the picture would prompt school officials to bar him from graduation, which is what happened after word of the picture got around town and rumors circulated about the married principal's love life.

Riggan has filed a federal lawsuit against the school district for infringing on his right of free speech.

His mother is angry at Midland High School principal Neil Richmond and the school board.

"My personal opinion is that they needed a scapegoat to blame because word got out about the principal's affair," said Gail Riggan.

"This picture was never even taken to school and wasn't taken on school property or during school hours," Riggan said. "They have absolutely no right under the law to say he can't photograph a car in front of a house - something that anybody else in the nation can do. The principal can have an affair with whoever he wants to - he just better not involve my son in it."

Riggan says he didn't even snap the picture in question that Saturday afternoon in January - a friend in the car took the picture. Riggan says he just kept the picture in his closet at home.

But the boys did talk about the photo. In Midland - population, 117,034 - that talk quickly evolved from classroom snickering into water cooler gossip.

When Riggan refused to write the formal apology that Richmond requested, Riggan was suspended for three days and placed in an alternative school, a special campus for students with behavior problems. He was also not allowed to attend his graduation ceremony.

Richmond says Riggan was disciplined for being disrespectful to an adult by fostering rumors.

"He was punished under policies the school has always upheld," said Richmond, declining to comment further.

But 35 students wrote letters to the school board to say that folks all over town were already gabbing about the principal's relationship with the female teacher. Those letters were not admitted into a meeting in which the board upheld Richmond's punishment, according to the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

Riggan believes the student who took the picture was not suspended because he was a star on the school baseball team.

U.S. District Judge Royal Ferguson is expected to decide this month whether the lawsuit warrants a trial. The judge has already ruled thrown out several motions from the Riggan's attorney, stating that as a minor in a public school, Riggan has no rights.

"We believe that they had no right to take one of the most special moments of my son's life away from him," Riggan said. Young people should have some rights in this country."